I installed the Indian Express app on my phone to stay updated with any major news that would come up. After the past few weeks, I am not sure if I want to stay updated.
Three incidents, all highlighting the deep fallacies in our countries system. It is supposed to be cold in December, but everything is on fire. A young woman was raped and burnt in Hyderabad. I was aimlessly scrolling through my Instagram timeline when this news reached me. And, just three days later, at 2 am, my trusty Indian express app blinked with the second agni kand: the Unnao rape case victim, burnt by 5 people, was dead. She died without justice, burnt to death. My gut tells me one of those accused took a cue from Hyderabad.
This follows another case from Unnao where a girl was gang-raped by Unnao MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar when she was 17-years-old. She lost her father in judicial custody, and a planned attack by a truck on her car, earlier this year, lead to the death of two of her aunts. She and her lawyer battled for their lives for months.
Another fire rocked the nation, closer to home. 43 people were burnt alive in a major fire in Anaj Mandi, in the national capital, Delhi. Around 200 people were sleeping in a paper factory when the fire broke out. The rescue operation is still going on as I write this.
When we wake up in the morning, almost out of instinct, we turn to our sides and light up our windows to the world—mobile phones. With the kind of content I interact with these days, my escapism is on an all-time high. I don’t want to turn that wifi on and let my Indian express app tell me new ways in which my people are let down. The striking cold bloodiness is burning this country alive.